Reader Response and Testosterone Poisoning

I started this blog back in February. At the end of the month, I had 700 visitors. This didn't include the people on auto-send, who have it sent to their e-mail each morning...or the people (about 20) that read it on my facebook page. The next month, the total went to 1500. I felt pretty good about that, like it was a pretty good following. However the next month, the number stayed the same...1500...and the next month. I felt a little deflated, like I had peaked too quickly. So I e-mailed the site and found out that the counter was broken. Feeling secretly relieved, I decided to install this little thing called Sitemeter. This allows me to not only see how many people visit each day.but how long they read and where they live. Now don't panic...I don't see any names, and most of the time, no companies...all though I do recognize some friends by the city or country. The most interesting information I can gather from this is which days and subjects are the most popular. (I'm taking a long and rather ego-stroking path to my subject today.) Up until now, by far the most popular subject was Flirty Mango. The day I recommended this product, the number of readers doubled and reader response was huge. (I find it interesting that people e-mail me rather than leave a public comment on the blog,a story for another time)...but that has all changed....


After Tuesday's blog, when I discussed the "tiff' with The Husband...I had the most responses I had ever had. For the next 24 hours, I was inundated with e-mails from both men and women either sharing their own stories of marital discord...or empathizing with mine. The icing on the cake was the short but sweet comment that came from a reader this morning...I won't reveal his identity, but I will say that he was from another country. He said "I only want to know if you had any trash bags...you never divulged this information." This made my day, and it was only 6:30 am.


So today, I am going to share my favorite responses with you, because who knew so many people are also baffled by the age-old question of why a man can't devote 30 seconds to a conversation...



1) The first response came from one of my best friends, who I think had replied before I finished writing...she allowed that not only did her husband do the same thing to her...but so did her kids...she added that she was glad The Husband had "seen the error of his ways"....Now wait...I never said that...I just said he apologized...In our family, that is a whole different thing.



2)Another friend mused about how she felt like most of my readers missed out because they don't actually know The Husband. She said she thinks that people think I am kidding, or taking some sort of "poetic license"...and little do they know that he does actually do things like move the creek...(and yes, we were visited by the EPA)



3) Brother-in-Law only wanted to know more about the creek...where did it finally end up?, what happened to the bobcat?, etc.....typical man, he missed the whole point...



4) Sister-in-Law's comment quickly followed.."I Feel Your Pain...His Brother Does the Same Thing to Me"........I suddenly had a visual in my mind of the brother-in-law nodding his head while glancing over sister-in-law's shoulder to watch the Mets game or a horse race....



5) A male friend attributed The Husband's behavior to "testosterone poisoning". Having never heard of this, I looked it up on line and found an actual definition on a site called Urban Dictionary. The first definition was "When a man dies as a result of doing something stupid, or "stupid guy activity". The second definition cannot be repeated here because this is a family blog.



6) The above friend's wife allowed that he had a tendency to turn on loud appliances in the middle of a conversation...isn't it interesting how men generally ignore messes until they are in the middle of a conversation with their wife, and then they are suddenly in a rush to vacuum or find a trash bag??



7) Son-in-Law was also more interested in the whole creek-moving incident, as he was not in the family yet when that occurred...but he said that Big Sister is just as guilty in this area, often-times interrupting one of his 'rants' (his word, not mine) to ask where the computer-charger might be. This just proves that the younger generation of women have it figured out. They don't spend anytime worrying about interruptions because they are busy doing the same thing...



8) The Senior does not read the blog, but if she did, she would say "Mom, why didn't you just tell him what he could do with those trash bags?"....



And finally,The Husband responded by saying..."I don't remember apologizing"...which started the tiff back up again...



So until tomorrow, when we will continue to discuss the dynamics between men and women...but first I have to take a load of stuff downstairs from my dining room table....